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Saturday, August 11, 2012

Pictures of Greek Sculptures

Pictures, Images & Photos of Ancient Greek Sculptures.

Pictures, images & photos of Greek Sculptures from the Archaic to the Hellenistic periods. What is known as Ancient Greece is today the Cyclades Islands, Greek mainland and the Aegean coast and its islands. It was common to use a small figure as a votive offering or in a grave burial. These go back as far as 2800 B.C on the Cyclades island and were simple figures in terracotta or stone.

The first period that shows the craftsmanship and skill of Greek sculptures id the Archaic period which was inspired by Egyptian art and spanned from about 100 B.C to 500 B.C. One of the dominant styles of the Archaic is the Kouros, a nude standing youth and the Kore, a draped standing girl. The nude male was prized in Greek sculpture as the male body was seen as a thing of great beauty. The Greek Olympic athletes competed in the nude. Because the Gods had human forms statues of the Gods in the nude are also normal in Greek Sculpture.

After the Archaic came the Classical period fro about the 5th cent B.C to the 4th cent B.C. By this time the Greek sculptures skills had been perfected and they were able to produce realistic and idealised style that evolved following the conquests by Alexander the Great (336 B.C to 323 B.C) into the Hellenistic Period. The Hellenistic period saw what some saw as a drop in standards as the sculptures became less idealistic and more realistic depicting real emotions.

Once the Romans had conquered Greece from 146 B.C they created a demand for copies of classic Greek sculptures that were produced almost like factory items. This period of Roman copies of Greek classical sculptures is important to archaeology as it preserved some lost classical sculptures as replicas.

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PICTURES OF THE ANCIENT WORLD

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About Paul Williams

Award winning food & travel photographer and film director Paul Williams based in London and North Yorks Moors. Photography and film credits as range from projects for Dire Straits and The Zombies to Tesco. Paul Williams is terminally addicted to creating images. see at